Slayer(91)

“That’s more like it!” The brunette winks at me again. “Live a little. You’re out of the frying pan and out of the fire. You’re a Slayer. Enjoy it!” She dances away into the crowd.

I’m left alone, but I’m not. I breathe in the energy around me, the pulsing life of so many incredible, strong, angry girls. There’s a fine line between a party and a riot, and we’re stomping up and down it. I throw my head back, close my eyes, feel the beat down to my very soul, telling me to let go.

But I’m scared. I don’t want to let go. What might happen if I do? Will I become a true Slayer? A hunter?

Will I break the world?

I draw back, and the room around me twists in a bright swirl of lights, disappearing.

I’m on the rooftop. Alone. Apparently this is where Slayers go when they’re sad and pathetic. Buffy waits, sitting on the edge, looking out over the sleeping city. “I never wanted this!” I shout.

She turns so I see her profile. “Me neither.”

“I’m going to break the world, and it’s all your fault!”

She lifts an eyebrow. “How is that my fault?”

“If I wasn’t a Slayer, I definitely couldn’t break the world.”

“Well, if you break the world, I’ll stop you.”

“I dare you to try!” I shake my head, confused by my own reaction. I don’t want to break the world. I would hope someone could stop me if it came to that. Why am I thinking this? Feeling this? Rage funnels into me, a vortex of thousands of years of pain and anger and power, but there’s nowhere else to push it. I’m the end. It pools in me, dammed. I close my eyes. I want to push her off. I want to—

? ? ?

A soft glow from a bedside clock shows 3:25. It casts muted green light onto a rumpled bed.

I don’t have a clock with a green display.

That’s not Artemis’s bed. It’s Cillian’s. He turns his head from side to side, whimpering, as though trying to wake himself.

The darkness forms, taking shape on top of him.

? ? ?

I sit straight up, my heart racing. The clock on our nightstand—the numbers red, not green—reads 3:24.

“Cillian!” I fall out of Artemis’s bed. Leo is gone. Cillian is in mortal danger. I don’t doubt it’s a demon now, so I don’t trust myself to fight it off. I won’t risk Cillian’s life on my skills.

“Artemis!” I shout, hopping down the hall as I pull on my shoes and throw on her leather jacket. I bang on Jade’s door. “Artemis, bring weapons!”

Artemis peers out, bleary-eyed.

“What’s going on?” Rhys comes out of his room, two doors down from Jade’s. He has a pillow mark on his cheek, and his glasses are askew.

“Cillian’s in danger!”

Rhys doesn’t hesitate. He runs back into his room and comes out with a sword, two stakes, and a knife. I take a stake and shove it in the waistband of my jeans. I know this thing isn’t a vampire, but stakes feel right in my hands in a way other weapons don’t.

“Let’s go.” He sprints down the hall. Artemis doesn’t even put on shoes. She just runs.

“I’ll get a car and follow,” Jade says, for once tuned in to what’s happening. I race for the castle exit.

“I can’t wait for you two,” I say, passing Artemis and Rhys.

“You don’t have to.” He points to the shed where we still keep a few four-wheelers. It’s locked. I kick it. The door flies off the hinges, revealing hulking objects in the dark.

I run ahead. I can hear as the engines start and begin following me.

“What are we facing?” Artemis screams over the roar of the engines as she pushes her four-wheeler hard to keep pace with me.

“I don’t know!” I dodge a branch and jump over a fallen tree. Artemis and Rhys have to stay on the trail; I run alongside it through the more difficult terrain. “I had a dream! The same one I had about Bradford Smythe.”

Rhys guns his four-wheeler, going faster. I match pace. Please, I think, please please let this be the most embarrassing night ever. Please let this be another example of how I don’t know how to be a Slayer, how my dreams are the result of my stressed-out mind falling asleep to thoughts of demonic conspiracies and doomsday prophecies. Please let Cillian be awake in bed watching Eurovision.

When we get to his house, the front door is ajar. That line of darkness cuts me like a knife.

“Cillian!” I shout. Rhys and Artemis jump off their four-wheelers, weapons brandished. I race up the stairs to Cillian’s room. “Cillian!” I slam through his door, stumbling in the dark. He’s on his bed. Alone.

And not breathing.

“No!” I rush to his side, feeling for a pulse. There isn’t one. But his skin is still warm. I take a deep breath, reminding myself of everything I’ve learned. Everything I’ve trained for. I carefully move him to the floor. And then I start CPR.

“Nina?” Rhys whimpers.

“Movement!” Artemis shouts from downstairs. “Window!” There’s a crashing noise.

I have a choice in that moment. The Slayer part of me is already tensed to sprint down the stairs. To give chase. To catch and kill this demon so that it can never hurt anyone again. And I know I can do it if I leave right now.